


Down Among the Dead

by Nightdog_Barks



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Drama, Friendship, Gen, Ghosts, Haunting, Loss, Memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-05-16
Updated: 2008-05-16
Packaged: 2017-10-18 05:22:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/185479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nightdog_Barks/pseuds/Nightdog_Barks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes you have to die in order to really get to know someone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Down Among the Dead

_**Housefic: Down Among the Dead**_  
 **STATUS:** Crossposted to [](http://house-wilson.livejournal.com/profile)[**house_wilson**](http://house-wilson.livejournal.com/) on 4/8/08.  
 **TITLE:** Down Among the Dead  
 **AUTHOR:** [](http://nightdog-writes.livejournal.com/profile)[**nightdog_writes**](http://nightdog-writes.livejournal.com/)  
 **PAIRING:** Wilson and House, strong friendship  
 **RATING:** PG-13.  
 **WARNINGS:** Yes. This story contains the death of a major character. Sort of.  
 **SPOILERS:** No.  
 **SUMMARY:** Sometimes you have to die in order to really get to know someone.  
 **DISCLAIMER:** Don't own 'em. Never will.  
 **AUTHOR NOTES:** If you like this story and would like to read more, there is a link at the end to a wonderful _Epilogue_ , written by [](http://blackmare-9.livejournal.com/profile)[**blackmare_9**](http://blackmare-9.livejournal.com/). 1,444 words.  
 **BETA:** My intrepid First Readers, with especial thanks to [](http://perspi.livejournal.com/profile)[**perspi**](http://perspi.livejournal.com/) and [](http://deelaundry.livejournal.com/profile)[**deelaundry**](http://deelaundry.livejournal.com/).

 **Down Among the Dead**

  
Wilson had to admit -- out of all the weird things that had ever happened to him in his life ( _and there's not that many,_ his helpful brain reminded him) -- being dead probably took the cake.

 _Probably? No, you think?_

 _"Shut up,"_ Wilson mumbled. He moved closer to House -- or rather, he _tried_ to move closer. Instead he continued to occupy ... well, whatever space he was occupying, which was apparently somewhere just to the right of House's head.

House, who was leaning heavily on his cane, looking down at something on the hotel carpet.

 _ **Something?** What are you, an inkblot? A spilled drink? A bit of undigested -- _

_"Shut **up,"**_ Wilson said more forcefully. He followed House's gaze, and found himself riveted to a pair of men's feet, shod in classic dark brown Oxfords from Johnston  & Murphy. They were the shoes he'd put on this morning. From the knees up, the rest of the man was covered in a clean white bedsheet in which the pleated fold-lines could still be seen.

 _Maid found you._

One of the cops in the room -- there were a lot of them, Wilson realized, snapping photographs and stretching measuring tapes from one point to another -- knelt by the body.

 _"Hey, no, don't do that -- "_ Wilson began but it was too late. The young officer, a beautiful woman with skin the color of light-roasted coffee beans, lifted the portion of the sheet concealing the man's face.

A muscle twitched in House's jaw. Wilson stared at himself.

His eyes were closed, his face (what he could see of it) peaceful. His left cheek was resting on the pebbly, burgundy-colored carpet, chin tucked slightly into his shoulder as if nestling in for a long winter's sleep. His right hand was palm-down, open-fingered on his chest, the pain he'd been trying to still there gone at last.

"That's him," House said. The police officer looked up at him.

"Sir, I need for you to -- "

"Wilson," House said. "James E. Wilson. M.D." The muscle in his jaw worked and his shoulders slumped a little as if his motorcycle jacket had suddenly grown too heavy for him. He looked up and around, seeming to take in the activity in the room for the first time.

"Box him up," he said to the young woman. "I'll take him home with me."

The officer re-covered the dead man's face. "Dr. House -- "

"I'm done here." House turned to go; his eyes were dark and his lips set in a grim, thin line.

 _"Wait a minute,"_ Wilson said. No one paid any attention. _**"Hey!"**_

 _No one can hear you._

 _"No, wait."_ What was going on? He could feel himself moving, but he couldn't see anything, and House was leaving, stumping towards the door --

 _"Don't leave me here alone!"_ He grabbed at House's arm.

A flash of glaring light, all the colors of the spectrum, ultraviolets to red shifts, assaulted his ears. A tremendous _boom!_ , the percussion of a thousand cannons, blinded him, and --

He was inside House.

* * *

That was how it began.

His funeral was well-attended, held in the same temple in which he'd been bar mitzvahed. House hadn't wanted to go. He'd promised to get drunk, so thoroughly plastered that he wouldn't be able to move, but Cuddy had threatened him and so he was there. Wilson didn't know what she'd said or done -- maybe she'd blackmailed him. It wasn't always a clear channel, this odd existence he was living. If it could be called living.

He looked out through House's eyes, at House's world, but sometimes the connection seemed to fuzz out, crackling with static like an ill-tuned preset on a radio receiver. There was no night, no day, no sense of time passing except for stray glimpses of a clock on the hospital wall or the watch on House's sinewy wrist or whether it was light or dark outside. There was no pain either, his own or House's, and he supposed he was grateful for that -- House seemed to take just as many Vicodin as ever, sending them down his throat these days most often with a scotch or a bourbon chaser. He'd tried talking to House in those first few hours, but as the hours had lengthened into days and the days had lengthened into months (or at least what he supposed to be months), he'd given up.

Now he spent most of his time wandering through House's mind, which was constructed of rooms. Large rooms, small rooms, huge rooms the size of a football field, long rooms that stretched on for endless miles, tiny rooms with tiny doors, barely the size of a mouse's hiding-hole. Wilson always held his breath for a moment when he opened a new door, wondering at what he might find.

Very few of the rooms were empty. Still, he always knocked, even though he'd learned long ago that the inhabitants of the occupied rooms, like the House in whose head he lived, couldn't hear or see him. He had lost count of how many rooms he'd been in, but he remembered every one.

One room opened onto the brightly-lit corridor of a hospital in Japan -- a place where an old man was always mopping the floor while a blue-eyed teenaged boy watched.

Another room led into a dusty street market, bustling with customers and loud with the exhortations of merchants hawking their wares. Wilson had glimpsed what appeared to be a camel walking slowly past, looking neither right nor left and setting its large feet deliberately one after the other. He had closed the door and stood for a moment, smiling.

Winter was in one room, an icy gust almost wrenching the door from his hand and pelting him with a stinging blast of sleet. Next door, spring reigned -- a sweet-smelling field of new-mown grass, dogwoods blooming and insects buzzing.

He'd opened one door and found only darkness, but something had _growled_ in the darkness -- a low, rough snarl, and he'd slammed the door shut, his heart pounding.

There were multiple versions of House's office, House's apartment, House's childhood homes. Multiple versions of multiple people -- House's parents, Cuddy, Crandall, Tritter, House's fellows, all re-enacting multiple versions of House's life.

Black letters appeared on a whiteboard, forming words which were almost instantly erased. One room was a lab, chrome and glass gleaming under bright fluorescent lights; another was a smoky jazz club, thick with blue cigarette smoke and a trio playing on stage.

Once Wilson had gotten tired of wandering, he looked through House's eyes again. He wasn't doing this very often anymore -- House's face had more lines and more grey hairs every time he caught a glimpse of him in a mirror, but he'd heard new voices and had decided to see who they belonged to.

They were House's new fellows, apparently -- two young men and two women, their strident tones overriding each other's, one of the male doctors scribbling frantically on the real whiteboard. Wilson looked at the differential, the signs and symbols telling him a simple story.

 _"It's not cancer,"_ he said, and was echoed just an instant later by House.

For a second he thought House had heard him, but House continued talking, his fellows flushing red with embarrassed exasperation, and Wilson had slipped away.

He went back to exploring House's mind, walking the hallways and knocking on doors, until one day he knocked on a door and a familiar voice answered.

* * *

"How long have you been here?" Wilson asked. Wilson smiled ruefully back at him.

"As long as you, I guess," he replied. "He hasn't come to visit me since ... well ... " Wilson cleared his throat.

"Yes," Wilson said quickly. He closed the door behind him and looked around.

The space was small and non-descript, as anonymously bland as a cookie-cutter hotel room and furnished with a table and two chairs. A single wax taper in a brass candlestick was the only source of light. The yellow flame flickered and danced, casting warm shadows in the corners of the room.

"So ... what are you doing?"

"I'm waiting," Wilson said quietly. He looked up, a guarded, hopeful expression on his face. "You're welcome to wait with me."

As if from a long distance, Wilson could hear voices. He caught his own name, and wondered who was saying it.

"Of course," he said. He settled himself into the other chair. "I'll wait here with you."

The candle flickered again, but Wilson wasn't worried. As long as House remembered him, it would never go out.

~ the end

  
 _ **NOTE:**  
Want to read more? [](http://blackmare-9.livejournal.com/profile)[**blackmare_9**](http://blackmare-9.livejournal.com/) has written a lovely Epilogue to this fic. You can read it by clicking [here](http://nightdog-barks.livejournal.com/869860.html#cutid1)._   



End file.
